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Music icon and Nobel literature laureate Bob Dylan has delivered his Nobel lecture, the only requirement to claim the money that comes with the prize, the Swedish Academy said Monday.

"The speech is extraordinary and, as one might expect, eloquent. Now that the lecture has been delivered, the Dylan adventure is coming to a close," Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, wrote in a blog post.

In the speech, sent to the Academy with an audio link in which Dylan reads it aloud, the enigmatic rock star reflects on the possible links between his lyrics and literature.

"When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature," Dylan said.

Bob Dylan in 1996

He then cited musicians who inspired him - including Buddy Holly, whose music "changed my life" and made him want to write songs when he was a teenager - and the classic novels that made a big impression on him, including Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Odyssey.

The lecture ends with Dylan musing on the differences between music and literature:

Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, “Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.”

The lecture can take nearly any form, including a short speech, a performance, a video broadcast or even a song, and must be held within six months of December 10, the date of the Nobel prize ceremony and the anniversary of the death of the prize's founder Alfred Nobel.

Dylan will be able to claim the eight million kronor (819,000 euros, $923,000) associated with the prize.

He was honoured "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", the Academy said when it announced Dylan as the winner in October.